Sara Cherry, PhD, Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, whose lab is currently screening 20,000 compounds to test their efficacy against the coronavirus, talked to the New York Times about the advent of the two antiviral drugs. She said it was “super exciting,” especially as omicron spreads across the world. The pills will be particularly welcome, she said, if omicron — or another new variant — turns out to reduce the effectiveness of vaccines. Another New York Times article covered Pfizer’s COVID-19 pill. The treatment, called Paxlovid, is likely to work against omicron and could be available in the United States before the end of the year. Dr. Sara Cherry, whose lab is currently screening 20,000 compounds to test their efficacy against the coronavirus, was interviewed by the New York Times about the new treatment. “This is quite amazing and potentially transformative,” she said. A third New York Times article reports on research that suggests omicron is easier on lungs than other versions of COVID-19. Dr. Cherry explained that although the research addresses the severity of symptoms, it does not give any indication on the transmissibility of the variant.

The sixth annual Celebration of Innovation by the Penn Center for Innovation (PCI) recently recognized the highest number of Penn inventors who were issued patents in any single year. A special award for Start-Up of the Year was presented to Don Siegel, PhD, MD, Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, for his Vetigenics, a privately held animal health biotechnology company in collaboration with the Penn School of Veterinary Medicine, that is working on the first fully canine anti-canine CTLA-4 checkpoint inhibitor, the canine antibody equivalent of human ipilimumab in production now for use in a dog clinical trial for cancer. A publication on this breakthrough was recently published in the antibody research and development journal mAbs. (Last year's PCI start-up of the year was Cabaletta Bio by co-director Michael Milone, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, whose clinical-stage biotechnology company focuses on engineered T cell therapies for B-cell mediated autoimmune diseases.)

Vijay G. Bhoj, PhD, MD, is part of a clinical-trial team that was awarded a seven-year, $14 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to promote organ transplantation for patients with end-stage renal disease who are currently on the waitlist for a kidney transplant. The team will launch a clinical trial harnessing synthetic chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells – a form of which was developed at Penn Medicine and became the first personalized cellular therapy for cancer – for use in patients for whom a compatible kidney cannot be found due to pre-existing antibodies against potential donors.